Girls in gaming: What Trinity College’s female students are playing

NO longer is the world of gaming strictly a boys club as Trinity College Foundation Studies students Yi Yi, Jianwei Liu and Anazco Masache Dayanna discovered after talking with fellow female students about their gaming habits.

Generally speaking, the girls at Trinity College are seen as good, intelligent students who enjoy activities like reading, shopping and watching movies. Yet despite all their homework, school responsibilities and what most males generally think the opposite sex should enjoy, the fact is that a lot of girls can be (and are) awesome gamers.

Video games have always been seen as a male stereotype; violent and difficult games designed by boys for boys. But that trend is changing.

Speaking with students from Trinity College, it was determined that many of the girls studying at the college played video games either once to three times per week.

The most popular titles for students included League of Legends (LOL), DOTA 2, World of Warcraft (WoW) as well as games found on students’ iPads.

League of Legends is one of the most popular games played by female Trinity students. Photo: Jianwei Liu

DOTA and LOL are multiplayer online battle arena games (or MOBA for short) that are based in a virtual arena online where players on teams of five must push to defeat the opposing team by taking out their protected target building. It’s a game that requires a lot of concentration, determination and team coordination that sees players take on a variety of roles such as protectors, mages, tanks, assassins and snipers. It also requires a lot of patience as an average round in a MOBA game can be an hour.

As for WoW, this massively multiplayer online role playing game (or MMORPG), has millions of subscribers who pay a fee in order to access and support a virtual world where they can easily lose hours of time on a vast amount of quests with fellow players from around the world.

One big difference however between male and female gamers at Trinity College was the amount of money spent on games. Several girls we spoke to had spent money on games while others said they played free titles such as Candy Crush and Angry Birds on their iPads.

With more and more girls getting into gaming, one day it’s hoped that more female-centric games get made with more female developers helping to create these games for women. That being said, having to balance school work, responsibilities and gaming in their down time requires girls to be skilled at multi-tasking in order to perform well in all aspects of their life.

This story was produced by Media and Communication students at Trinity College Foundation Studies as part of Meld’s community newsroom collab. Education institutions, student clubs/societies and community groups interested in being involved can get in touch us via meld@meldmagazine.com.au.